Taking the office of ASUO president can be a terrifying leap into the unknown.
“I think I was just scared,” 2009–10 President Emma Kallaway said, recalling her first days.
“I was really worried we weren’t going to do anything useful.”
Former Vice President Getachew Kassa was also nervous.
“And I was scared it was going to be because of me,” Kassa said.
That moment of uncertainty and expectation is one new ASUO President Amelie Rousseau will experience today, when she takes office following her election in April.
The stakes are high. Rousseau will have final control over a $12 million budget, made up of mandatory contributions of $192 from each student each term.
In an interview on Sunday, given before she chose the staff she will formally announce today, Rousseau hinted at a degree of uncertainty on many policies.
The subject of University President Richard Lariviere’s bond proposal to the State Legislature is one such issue.
The proposal would ask the state for at least $600 million to $1 billion in taxpayer-subsidized funds to use in running the University for the next 30 years. In the offices of the ASUO, it is referred to simply as “the white paper.” Rousseau said she needs to determine a stance on the proposal, but that when she does, she will push hard for it before the State Legislature.
“Once I do more research and figure out what our stance is going to be on the white paper and that proposal, I think pushing a campaign on that in either direction is definitely going to be something that we’re going to work on,” she said.
Rousseau said she has met Lariviere, to whom she will be expected to speak for students at the University, no more than five times. It’s the key difficulty of being an incoming ASUO president: The administrators with whom the president is expected to deal are battle-hardened and experienced, meaning the ASUO president, who serves a one-year term, needs to catch up quickly.
It is all the more important when the president’s inner circle professes as much skepticism of the administration as Rousseau’s. Junior Robert D’Andrea, Rousseau’s closest adviser, said the ASUO was “damaged” by 2008–09 president Sam Dotters-Katz’s close relationship with the administration.
However, the line between working with the administration and fighting administrators is a fine one.
Rousseau said, for instance, that she will request the administration’s help in negotiating the ASUO’s contract with Lane Transit District. That contract is what allows University students to present their student I.D. cards on LTD buses without being charged for rides.
The contract needs to be renewed each year and is always a source of frustration.
“They’re frustrated when it comes to how different students negotiate every year,” Rousseau said. “But I think that they’re also unnecessarily difficult sometimes when it comes to negotiating. I don’t know; I think that we can also work with the administration to have some help, but also ensure that we’re making all the decisions. We can absolutely have some help.”
She said she doesn’t know exactly who that help should come from. Today, she will start learning.

Multimedia editor Dave Martinez contributed to this report.

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